"Gucci is grossly undervalued right now. It can hardly get any worse. Buy the company, even if I fail completely, you can replace me with someone else and still turn a profit," Sophia said. She hesitated, then added, "If you're not willing, there's another way. I could use the money you gave me to buy ten percent of Gucci myself. With your backing, the family would likely hand me control. In a few years, once the company is healthy again, you could buy more shares if you wanted."
Simon gave no reaction. "What about the wine venture you originally planned?"
"The backup plan I just mentioned was meant for the wine business," Sophia replied. "My target was Château Latour one of Bordeaux's traditional five first-growths, and the only one currently on the market. Lafite and Mouton are with the Rothschilds, Haut-Brion with the Dillons, Margaux with Félix Potin. Latour was split between two British owners: Pearson Group with seventy-five percent and Harvey & Sons with twenty-five. Pearson is in education and publishing; they held Latour purely as an investment. Day-to-day operations were always handled by Harvey & Sons, who are wine merchants. Recently, Harvey began looking to sell their stake because of financial trouble. My original idea was to take that twenty-five percent and the operational control."
Simon listened carefully. At last he understood why, the last time they spoke, she had suddenly announced she wanted to "do something" and offered such tempting terms.
"And then?" he asked.
Sophia's face fell. "I was on the verge of closing the deal with Harvey when Allied Lyons swooped in and stole it."
Simon studied her expression. "They took it that easily? You didn't fight?"
"Allied Lyons is a huge conglomerate, spirits, food, fast food. Deep pockets. They not only bought Harvey's shares but are now going after Pearson's. Word is they've offered a hundred million pounds for the seventy-five percent, and the final number could go higher." She paused, then continued, "Latour is priceless in its way, but not at that price. In 1976 Félix Potin paid just sixteen million dollars for Margaux. In my view, Latour today is worth around a hundred million. The figure I had nearly agreed with Harvey was twenty-five million."
A hundred million pounds, at the current rate of roughly 1.6 dollars to the pound, came to one hundred and sixty million dollars.
Sophia's former in-laws were wine merchants; Simon had no reason to doubt her judgment.
The moment he heard the name Latour, he had felt a spark of real interest.
A French national treasure like Latour, even if it never made a penny, owning it as a collector's piece would outshine any antique painting or calligraphy by miles.
Still, if Sophia said the price was inflated, he had no intention of racing Allied Lyons to play the fool. He did not yet have hundreds of millions to throw away, and money was meant to be spent where it mattered.
Jennifer had appeared at some point, quietly holding several garments and standing by the bedroom door.
Simon noticed her, glanced at his watch, and said, "Time's getting on. We'll continue after dinner with the Gucci representatives."
He rose, took the clothes from Jennifer, and headed for the bathroom.
Dinner had been arranged at an Italian restaurant near the Kendall Hotel to welcome the Gucci delegation.
Guccio Gucci, the founder, had three sons; by now the family had grown vast across the third generation.
After Guccio's death, the shares had not been placed in a unified trust but divided equally among all heirs, triggering years of bitter infighting.
By this point most family members realized that continued strife would destroy the company entirely. When Sophia began mediating and it became clear that the rising young magnate Simon Westeros stood behind her, the three main branches quickly came to terms.
The very fact that Sophia had persuaded all three warring factions to send representatives to Melbourne for acquisition talks already impressed Simon. Otherwise he would have refused the moment she raised the subject on the phone.
Though he had been deliberately tough with her in private, at dinner he engaged the Gucci representatives formally and in detail.
He had done his homework; the evening passed pleasantly for everyone.
Around ten o'clock Melbourne time, the meal ended. Nothing was signed, yet all parties knew the deal was effectively sealed.
Back in the hotel suite, Sophia kept stealing odd glances at Simon.
She was not surprised by his preparation or his shift in manner. What stunned her was his fluent Italian.
Few in the Gucci family spoke English. Sophia herself was comfortable in Italian—Corsica, where she grew up, was closer to Italy than to mainland France.
She had been ready to translate, only to discover that the young man's Italian was even better than hers.
It had clearly won him enormous goodwill at the table.
She had known he spoke French, Italian was a complete surprise. The more she thought about everything else he revealed, the stronger her curiosity became.
How had a twenty-year-old man become this dazzling?
They did not linger in the living room but went straight to the study.
Simon motioned for Sophia whose expression remained strange to sit opposite the desk. He pulled a folder from the cabinet and opened it. Before he could speak, the desk phone rang.
It was the hour when calls from the States usually came. He signaled Sophia to wait, picked up the receiver, and found Nancy Brill on the line.
He spoke quietly with Nancy. Jennifer brought in coffee, poured for both of them, then settled on the sofa with some papers instead of leaving.
Her habitual ponytail left a stretch of pale, graceful neck exposed as she read like a tender white scallion trying and failing to go unnoticed.
"Fine, Nancy, we can mortgage, but no more than five percent… No haggling. Daenerys at two billion is already undervalued; I'm not giving ten… This isn't about risk. If Citibank won't accept the terms, we walk."
He finished the loan discussion, hung up, and Amy called next to talk about dismissing Ron McMillan.
In all fairness, Ron McMillan was a mediocre producer. Without projects like Run Lola Run, he would have remained a marginal independent for life.
Simon had kept him on initially out of gratitude for that early collaboration. But ever since Ron deceived him over casting on Scream the previous year, trust was gone.
As Daenerys Entertainment grew, loyalty mattered more to Simon than raw ability. He could tolerate disagreement, deliberate deception was unforgivable.
Add Ron's private habits the kind that invited trouble for the company, and cutting him loose during the audit felt like closing a nagging worry.
Simon hung up, noticed Jennifer quietly reading in the corner, curved his mouth into a half-smile, and said to Sophia across the desk, "I'm starting to wonder if you two Frenchwomen are in league to fleece me."
Nancy Brill had immigrated only after university, Brill was unmistakably French.
Sophia was French by birth.
On the call, Nancy had insisted there was no risk in mortgaging shares. Simon had refused anything beyond five percent and still felt he had conceded too much.
Of course he understood that as his personal debt rose, banks would demand collateral eventually.
Sophia looked puzzled. "Boss, I'm not fleecing you."
Simon smiled. "I just finished the call to a French-descended executive. I'll introduce you sometime. You two… well, you have certain similarities."
Sophia nodded and waited.
Simon wasted no more time. He opened the folder. "I've had people gather information on LVMH lately. Your instincts are absolutely right. But you've never run a company yourself, that's my one reservation."
Sophia met his gaze. "Boss, you had no experience either, and Daenerys has grown explosively."
Simon raised an eyebrow. "Planning to measure yourself against me?"
She almost rolled her eyes but stopped herself, she truly couldn't compare. After a moment she said, "I majored in business administration, earned my MBA three years ago, helped run my ex-husband's family business, and excelled in real estate brokerage. If I'd stayed in that field I could open my own firm by now. Isn't that enough proof I can manage a company?"
Simon recalled the investigator's report he had commissioned when he hired her and finally nodded. "All right. I'll give you one year—"
"At least two, boss. Gucci is in terrible shape. New management, product-line overhaul, brand repositioning—it all has to be done, but not rushed. To bring Gucci back to life, I need—"
He cut her off with a touch of irritated tone. "No bargaining."
Sophia blinked, remembered he had used the exact phrase with Nancy, and nearly laughed. She lifted her chin stubbornly. "Two years."
Simon drummed his fingers on the papers, silent a moment, then nodded. "Fine. Two years."
Sophia was surprised he gave in so quickly. Comparing his treatment to Nancy's, she felt a small, private triumph.
Simon had no intention of playing favorites. He was not inflexible; once he calmed down and saw the request was reasonable, agreement came naturally.
They moved on to specifics, acquiring the shares and then running the company.
Buying Gucci was only the beginning. Simon's ultimate goal was to build a luxury conglomerate on the scale of LVMH.
Years later, LVMH would become the world's largest luxury group, its market value briefly surpassing a hundred billion dollars. For a non-tech, non-monopoly industrial company, that was extraordinary.
At its peak it would own more than sixty iconic brands, Dior, Givenchy, Hermès, Louis Vuitton and even Gucci would once be a takeover target.
The success of LVMH's portfolio model had spawned imitators, eventually forming the current triumvirate: LVMH, Kering, and Richemont.
Richemont, based in Switzerland, focused on jewelry and watches and competed less directly.
Kering's portfolio closely mirrored LVMH's, putting the two in constant rivalry. And Kering's flagship brand was none other than Gucci—worth tens of billions on its own in later years.
Right now, LVMH only two years after its creation was still embryonic. Bernard Arnault had not yet gained full control; management and the largest shareholder remained locked in tense standoff.
Beyond Dior and Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Hermès, Fendi, Bulgari, and others were still independent.
Kering and Richemont did not yet exist.
LVMH had been built on the foundation of Christian Dior.
Now, by taking Gucci a brand with complete lines in fashion, leather goods, cosmetics, and more. Simon possessed an equally strong foundation.
If he followed the expansion path LVMH had taken in the original timeline, and leveraged Daenerys Entertainment's Hollywood media power, he might well create the supreme luxury empire of this world.